Convenience store association against commercialization of rest stops

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The New York Association of Convenience Stores (NYACS) is against Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget proposal to commercialize rest areas and has asked the state’s Congress to remove the proposal from the final state budget due April 1.

Under Cuomo’s proposal, rest areas along non-toll interstate highways would allow the sale of locally sourced food and beverages. The proposal, however, does not mention locally grown products, agritourism or Taste NY, an initiative that promotes and sells food and beverages produced in the state at selected retail locations.

“Thus, rest areas that currently offer bathrooms, tourist information and vending machines could potentially be developed with a variety of higher intensity commercial uses, including gas stations and convenience stores—posing a new threat to tax-collecting entrepreneurs who built their convenience store businesses near such highways with the understanding that the law precluded the State of New York from directly competing with them,” NYACS President Jim Calvin said.

Calvin calls the proposal a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The New York Department of Transportation website lists the rest stops that may be commercialized. It includes I-84 in the lower Hudson Valley, Route 17/I-86 along the Southern Tier, I-88 between Binghamton and Schenectady, and the Adirondack Northway between Albany and the Canadian border.